56. Missing Hin
Clan MacLeod, Northern Margraves of the Rumidian Empire, are connected to the Infernal House Alekto. Looking to thwart them in the name of her patrons, House Telphousila, in the hopes of gaining her house's direct aid in the fight against Madog, Clwyd and the party have come to Dunvegan Keep on the island of Newwe Rumidia during the week-long Harvest Close festival. * The day is Fallingleaf 1, the second day of the festival. The party have learned that the leaders of Clan MacLeod go hunting in the daytime during the festival, over in the nearby Margrave Woods. They decide to follow them. ** Following tracks, they see the 100-strong, mostly mounted hunting party eventually split into three smaller groups, heading different directions further into the woods - each hunting group about 30-40 people strong. ** They follow the middle path, hoping it's the path the clan chief, Magnus MacLeod, took. ** They cook up a plan to try passing Aerendyl off as royalty from Faerie, with him and his entourage busy hunting a dangerous creature. ** Eventually they come to a clearing filled with day tents, with a number of servants and footmen busying themselves. ** The party end up talking to a female archer, with Aerendyl doing most of the talking. ** The deception does not go well. She remains standoffish and wary of the small group of newcomers, keeps them apart from the camp, and mimics a birdcall to signal her lord back to speak with the group. ** Eventually the riders return to the camp. ** The party see Tormod MacLeod, possibly the biggest human they've ever seen - well over 7-feet-tall and wide enough to wear the height well. ** Aerendyl's attempts at deception and persuasion go very badly. ** Tormod isn't clueless to the dealings of Faerie and he finds the group very suspect. ** They end up with the horse-hunters surrounding the party, hunting spears ready, the lady archer has arrow to bowstring, and Tormod is flanked by other big men afoot, all threatening to draw their claymore swords. ** Pyt telepathically instructs Jolene to fall from the treetops to the ground and writhe about in a weird way. She does a bad job of looking natural, gets shot by two arrows from the archer very quickly, and disappears in a sulphurous puff as she is sent back to the Hells. ** The party decide to peace out. Pyt grabs Aerendyl and Dimension Doors away, up into some trees. Wilfred grabs Clwyd and does similarly. Clwyd then casts Fly on herself and Wilfred and they hide above the treetops. Aerendyl Wildshapes into an eagle and blends in. Pyt Polymorphs into a beetle and skitters from treetop to treetop for a while, keeping watch on the riders that were sent out in pairs in eight different directions to hunt the suspicious group (that at the very least were trespassing in the Margrave Woods). ** With flight and animal forms, the group aren't found by the hunters. * The party return to Dunvegan Keep, needing to reassess their plan. ** Wilfred Polymorphs Clwyd into a spider so the guards at the city's Lake Gate don't take too much note - a goblin would stick out. Clwyd acquiesces, but is unhappy with having to do so. ** Aerendyl remains as an eagle, flying into the city in his own time. ** Similarly, Pyt uses another Polymorph spell to go eagle and fly into the city without having to go through a gate. ** A Sending spell from Wilfred to Pyt and they are able to meet back up. * The party reunite on the Drunken Dragon in Dunvegan Keep's dock at about 5pm. ** They see Garret inside the deck cabin, just chillin as he does. Poop is snug in his wall sock. ** Garret is happy to leave the room when they ask, since they 'need to have an argument.' He chuckles as he goes. ** Aerendyl is real angry: he's angry that he had to do the talking when he doesn't think he's the best for that sort of task and he's angry that they might have given up their element of surprise. When Clwyd tells him what they're trying to do in the city is the right think to do, he quips back: 'aren't we just getting rid of one group of devils for the sake of another?' Aerendyl thinks maybe they should just leave. ** Clwyd messages Nix, asking if there's any way he knows of that they might disrupt the ritual MacLeod should be performing for Alekto. He replies that there are a number of ways they could be going about it, and he can't really advise until they give him a bit more information. ** Taylor returns, now with a duellist's set of armour, a rapier, and some daggers. He bought gloves for the lightning-infused Garret too. The supplies he was sent out to buy will be arriving on the following day. ** Taylor offers some of his insight, actually getting quite into the strategy and interconnectedness of it all. He thinks the MacLeods posting bounty posters might be unlikely; it might as easily make them look weak or incapable of maintaining control at a tumultuous time for the margrave. Further, with the appearance of Jolene at the end of the interaction, they don't know what the party's connection to the Hells is. They might themselves be feeling unsure about their own position with Alekto. No, far more likely they might send a few private hunting groups looking for an elf, gnome, goblin, and half-elf moving around together. ** Taylor also says, 'you don't normally go for the king in the first couple moves.' ** Wilfred messages the Twins to find out how they are getting along looking for rumours. They're with some halflings that seem to be having a bad time. Say they'll meet the party at the Stew Pot tavern. * The party arrive at the Stew Pot at around half 6. The festival is again in full swing all over Low Town, and the halfling tavern is ram-packed and lively. ** While they wait for the Twins, Aerendyl and Clwyd continue their (somewhat heated) conversation from the ship. The elf asks what her goals are for after Madog is dealt with, and challenges her on the fact that there seem to be lots of pro-Madog goblins around. He is concerned that she seems to be choosing to kill a political leader and apparently has no plan for afterwards. Clwyd rebuts sharply, saying she herself has no interest in being in charge there, if that's what Aerendyl is worried about, and that any displaced goblins will be free to go back to how things were prior to Madog. ** Aerendyl gets Clwyd to tell her story again, the reason why she's chasing this man so doggedly. She does so with reluctance, again saying she was working on her ship engine when she heard explosions outside. She stayed below for a long time, and when she emerged, maybe hours later, maybe days, it was just chaos outside. All her ship-clan dead. Gunpowder residue everywhere. She took what she could from her ship to limp to Bisquay, and then sequestered herself on the Wine Island, asking around as she could, learning of a goblin warlord that was cannibalising ships to grow his own, explosions and fire left in his wake: Madog the Inferno. ** Poppy and Poe Tenpenny show up to break up the tension a little. They explain that a halfling woman, Mrs Porridgepot, has some children that went to the castle festivities the night before and haven't returned. They asked around a bit and found that yeah, a few people that went seem to have not returned yet. ** All of them return to the Drunken Dragon to sleep, a little earlier than the previous night. * The next day, Fallingleaf 2, the third day of the week-long festival. ** The supplies to repair the ship that Taylor bought arrive and the group set Poop the Brownie to focus on repairing the hull first - no point in repairing the steering oar if there's no ship left to steer, they say. ** Taylor mentions that he is a duellist with some skill, and that duelling isn't unheard of in these parts. In particular, duels carried out at the site of Newwe Rumidia's Witness Stones are sacrosanct. He offers his skills if the party think they might be able to make use of them, since he is the first mate now after all. They say they'll bear it in mind. ** The group think it would be best if they stay split up as much as possible, to minimise the chance of them being found. ** Taylor and Garret are sent out as a pair (I can't remember what they were sent to do!!!) * Aerendyl and Pyt go with the Twins to the Porridgepot household, deep in the district of Dunvegan Keep known as the Marrows. ** They learn that three of Mrs Porridepot's kids, her sons Alton and Ander, and her daughter Blossom, all went to the castle on the first night of the festival and none have come back yet, now two days later. This is the first time in their 20-something years alive she's not known where they were sleeping. She's trying to hold herself together but it's obvious she's pretty upset by it all. The rest of her household are affected too, but stay out of the party's way while they're asking questions. ** Aerendyl gets a look at the three missing halflings in a family sketch Mrs Porridgepot keeps in a big locket on her person. ** They leave the house, telling the Twins to sniff around and try and find some people that went with the missing halflings but did come back. * Meanwhile, WIlfred and Clwyd found some seats looking on to the castle approach outside a pub in High Town called the Crown and Log Pin. ** They see a group a clerks that keep coming and going over the hours, beating back the waiting crowd -- those keen to be among the first 1000 that night and so they get invited into the castle -- shepherding carts and wagons of supplies up and down the approach. ** After Wilfred Sent Pyt a message telling him where they are, Team Tall grab a carriage to High Town and link up with Team Small. On the way, Aerendyl tries Scrying on Alton and Blossom Porridgepot both, and the spell fails both times. Dead or not on this plane of existence, they conclude. * Outside the Crown and Log Pin, the party comes up with a new plan: incite chaos. ** They go to the district of Low Town called Smoke Street. *** Pyt finds the HQ of the Dunvegan Gazetteer, the broadsheet he's seen around town. *** He gets a private meeting with a journalist, spying the editor-in-chief's office on the way. *** Inside the private room, Pyt casts Modify Memory on the journalist, making him see Cecilia MacLeod in the alleyway through the window. She approaches a child-like Alton Porridgepot, puts a knife to his throat, turns her face to look at the reporter, she smiles and her face 'becomes impish,' and then she and the scared Alton disappear in a cloud of smoke. *** Pyt Dimension Doors into the editor-in-chief's room. The guy is asleep at his desk. Pyt modifies his memory too, putting the same sort of sequence of events in, but with the perspective changed a bit. Interestingly, Cecilia-with-an-impish-face still looks the chief in the eyes, as she did with the other journalist. *** Pyt then Polymorphs into a spider and sticks around in the room. *** The chief wakes up in a panic, struggles with the new memory and his being asleep, rushes to the door, flings it open, and screams, 'Jonny, get the fuck in here!' *** The other reporter Pyt had 'spoken' with rushes in, and the pair frantically discuss what just went down in the alley outside Jonny's office and how to handle such a crazy fucking scoop in their backyard. *** Satisfied, Pyt scurries away. ** Meanwhile, still in the industrious Smoke Street, Wilfred finds a print press willing to make some posters for him. He gets 200 posters declaring Alton Porridgepot missing, showing a sketch of the halfling's face, and saying he was last seen at the Dunvegan Keep revels on the night of the Vernal Equinox. ** The party take 50 posters each and split up, distributing them about town and in taverns and the like. *** Aerendyl left them around the Marrows. *** Clwyd left them around the Quadways. *** Pyt left them around High Town. *** Wilfred left them around Keepshade. * By the time they all get back to their ship in the docks, it's past 11pm and the city is alive with festivities again, even in the docks. ** Aerendyl tries and fails to scry on Tormod MacLeod. ** The group consider bed. Category:Part Five